Maybe its been discussed already, but when Troy comes out, it will be a big release for HD-DVD. Im curious what the pic quality will be like since its 163 minutes, has Dolby TruHD 5.1 and IME.

I had forgotten that movie was sooo long!!

Looking at Bestbuy.com, all the PS3 preorders are listed at $59.99....so I really doubt we will see them for more than that.

It looks like the pricing is about the price of the 360 for games. BUT, they have alot of the release dates wrong. Most of them show launch date which is ridiculous.

Army of 2 and Assassins Creed would probably get me to buy a PS3 alone (if they dont come out for the 360).

Ok...so Studio Canal announced 10 titles for release in Nov and 15 more by March. They said that "Million Dollar Baby" is one of them. So, does WB not have the distrib rights to that overseas?? That seems like the only one in the list that was a WB title here in the states.

http://hddvdformat.blogspot.com/

Does anyone have a list of the exact 10 titles that will be out on Nov 20?? This initial list has 28 titles, so maybe they are all from this list...

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=62420

I sure hope Total Recall, Stargate, Le Pacte Des Loups and Terminator 2 are in those 25 to be released before March!!

Supposedly, these will all have DTS HD lossess audio (FR for Le Pacte des Loups and english subs).

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=62639

I was touching on the PS3 and Blu-Ray but the reverse is true for the 360 add-on as well. It doesn't make sense to release software if the primary player(s) that is out in the market can't read that software. All you are left with is product either sitting on the shelf or being returned. Maybe that is why there are no BD50 out? Perhaps the Samsung really can't read them?

That being said, Amir has touched on 100s of TL45 topics already. MS and Toshiba are very aware of the interest in it from the consumer side of things. I have a feeling the 360 add-on will support it if the dvd forum ever decides to vote it into spec.

A) I would buy a Pioneer combo player (as long as it plays CDs).
B) I think I'll end up spending more money importing HD DVDs this year than on local HD DVDs.

While that would be ironic, Pathe's R2 DVD edition of The Fifth Element is pretty lousy.

They must have been using the same master Sony went for with the Blu-ray edition.

The information I have suggests this may well be the case. It might also affect the Philips unless it's being upgraded.

That doesn't really leave the DVD forum long to add TL45 to the spec. Not if MS are sincere in wanting to launch the add-on before Xmas.

Has Amir or any insider on avsforum actually confirmed that current players would not be able to play TL discs without a hardware upgrade?

It has a lot of similar problems (dirty source elements, poor compression), but I compared them directly and they're not the same master.

Amir said they would.

Not that I have read. That seems to be where the big question mark is. If the drive is capable of reading TL can they just firmware it or not?

Also, by what Alex posted today, it is looking more and more like in the days before the Samsung went to be manufactured, the BDA threw out info about what is compliant with the spec.

"Given the whole "Will Player X play DL BD50?!?" brohaha...the BDA JTC once again went to great pains to point out that only BD-ROM devices that are "System Description Part 1" conformant are required to play BD50...non-conformant, but still legal (logo and all), BD-ROM devices are not required to play BD50. How odd of them to keep pointing this out to their members."

I must have missed that. I guess it's just time then to see if it is even brought to a vote.

Yeah, I thought I remember him saying that, but he is also human or at least a cyborg.

Amir said it was possible, but remained vague from what I can remember. Since the discs haven't been completed yet it's probably a bit early to say if the player will read them or not!

Oddly enough I've been watching my season 2 DVDs of Battlestar Galactica this evening. For those interested the R2 is anamorphic widescreen, and features the podcast commentaries on only 7 of the first 8 episodes. The rest of the season's episodes only get deleted scenes on the extras disc. Nice slim-case package though.

The more we hear about the creation of BD, the more I really think that Sony will balk at any combo deck actually being released. Think of it this way:

For the sake of argument, we'll say that the average BD or HD release is $20. Also for the argument, we'll say that the discs are equal in quality and extras, which at some point will most likely be true.

Now we all know that right now, BD is much more expensive to make, as current DVD production lines can be converted to make HD-DVDs. If dual format were to come out, I think it would quickly become the top seller, because hey, no matter who "wins" you are not in the cold with obsolete electronics.

Why would any media company aside from Sony invest in BD production over cheaper and easier HD-DVD? Three., four years from now, if BD survives and more production facilities are built, then BD production costs come down. But right now, HD by far gives the studios a bigger chunk of that $20.

Now someone will say "disc capacity" and I think they would just go with multiple discs if they needed to.

I doubt we'll see an affordable DF deck for a long time. Or there will be a bunch of happy HD-DVD supporters.

I'm not aware of any DVD production line being converted to HD DVD. It seems in practice it's been more economic to buy a new line capable of doing both. As to BD vs HD DVD production cost the experience of the replication companies making recordables seems to be that BD is cheaper. Unless you believe each and every recordable is also being subsidised, regardless of replicator, which wouldn't make any sense. Panasonic, TDK, Sony, they all seem to be cheaper than the HD DVD recordable option. Since the processes are largely the same between R/RW and ROM disc replication the production of these discs (and the lessons learned) should help to lower the cost of ROM discs as well. Not that the Pioneer news isn't anything we haven't heard before from other companies... Samsung? LG? Though I'm not sure if this Pio drive is supposed to playback ROM or just read/write recordables of either format.

IFA 2006: Samsung officially launch BD-P1000 Blu-ray player in Europe
Posted by Amber Maitland

01 September 2006 - At IFA, Samsung has officially launched the BD-P1000 in Europe, but the player has been available in the US since 25 June.

The company now says it expects to have the player available to consumers in October in the UK, but the player has been dogged with reports of technical flaws since its release in the US.

...

A UK spokesperson said that it’s expected that the player will retail for an eye-watering £1000 in the UK, despite it only costing $1000 in the US. He was unable to account for high price; even with an added 17% to account for VAT, the player costs considerably less in the US.

Source

Yikes.

<hr>

An interesting quote from the game media:

The above counts the same for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. It's too bad studios have to announce the MSRP, because it makes people think movies are $40-$60 when in reality they are about half that.

Samsung's player in EU may be in for a rough time:

Most troubling is that HD-DVD is getting mixed in with Blu-Ray, such as in this Inquirer article:

From todays frys ad. Got 1080p?

Nope. And neither will anyone buying that combo.

It has been widely documented that changing a DVD line to an HD--DVD line is a minimal expense, where creating a BD line is a huge investment. I was not talking about recordables; they have no bearing on the point I was trying to make.

Burnt,

it's already been established that existing DVD lines can easily switch to HD DVD whereas BD is a totally different story.

I think I've read the same info that Burnt has and that contrary to early reports, they are finding it more advantageous to just build the lines from the ground up rather than converting/retooling existing ones.

should HD DVD take off unexpectedly in the future at some point it may make sense to retool older lines to fill orders quickly, but I don't really see that happening anytime soon.

Got my Toshiba today and first watched LoTR just to see how it is for upconverting. That one happens to be a pretty mediocre transfer, but it looked very good. Then I watched Serenity HD-DVD. I gotta' be honest and let you know that I expected more. I think I set myself up for that though. I remember asking if HD-DVD was significantly better than tv programming in HD. I remember hearing a resounding yes. It is better, but not be leaps and bounds. I still can't imagine watching a standard program unless I had to, but I think I set my sights too high.

Now, there is a lot of dark scenes in Serenity that are not great to really tell on. On a few shots that were far off looking to a town, etc. the image was amazing. Looked like I was looking through a window with 3-D and all.

And, I also need to remember that I am watching on a 122" screen sitting 13 feet away. For the size of the screen, etc. the picture is unbelievable. My projector is native 720p so that might also come into play.

However, I could see myself sticking to Netflix until prices come down or the war is over.